The world has been turned upside down

By Todd Wilkinson

These are exciting times, but will someone please explain what's going on?

Item No. 1: Right wingers, claiming to be "Conservatives," blast away at so-called "Liberals" for being frivolous big spenders and for allegedly promoting the idea that big government is the answer to society's problems.

And yet - under their leadership, the U.S. government is dog paddling in a bottomless pit of red ink, facing a record budget deficit fueled by lack of fiscal restraint, and courting a costly war in Iraq that the Bush administration says it can't tell us how much it will cost (recent "conservative" estimates of $80 billion translate into each taxpayer forking out $800 apiece to subsidize the invasion). Meanwhile, the presence of government looms larger than ever in our lives.

Item No. 2: "Citizen" legislatures in states like Montana which claim they are representing the will of the people and leading us into the future.

Yet we have lawmakers in Helena, disproportionately represented by farmers and ranchers who, demographically speaking, represent a tiny and ever shrinking fraction of the state's population; who introduce sophomoric legislation rather than confront real issues; who buddy up with mining, timber, and agricultural lobbyists, and who seem proud of the fact they've never left the boundaries of Montana to see how the rest of the world actually does business in the 21st century.

Item No. 3: Federal and state governments which claim to favor "local control" as a way of giving important decisions "back to the people."

Yet coming out of Washington, we have emissaries who refuse to heed the wishes of what the majority of people have to say, rejecting widely supported plans to: ban snowmobiles from Yellowstone National Park; reintroduce grizzlies into the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness, and keep in place the right of local citizens to challenge federal land management decisions that don't make sense.

On the state side, we have legislators who refuse to accept the obvious, that we need to reform Montana's tax system by imposing a state sales tax while delivering property tax relief. Those same legislators mentioned in Item No. 2 refuse to give local governments, which are truly closer to the people, the power to bring local taxing options before voters to better fund schools and important community projects.

Item No. 4: Rhetoric about being committed to open government and respecting personal privacy.

Yet legislators want to severely limit citizen access to government information; and some drafted a bill to give parents the "right" to see a list of every book a student checks out of the local school library. Anyone ever heard of trusting your kid?

Item No. 5: Tobacco use is expensive to society and bad for the health of anyone who lights up or comes in contact with secondhand smoke.

Yet legislators aspire to raid state tobacco settlement money that citizens overwhelmingly earmarked for tobacco-use prevention; they attempt to overturn public smoking bans; and refuse to be more aggressive in raising taxes on cigarette sales, which would serve as both a disincentive to smoke and a short-term source of revenue.

Item No. 6: The right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Yet lawmakers affiliated with certain Christian organizations, which claim - erroneously - to be the ultimate arbiter of morality, refuse to even consider the recognition of same-sex marriages or giving state benefits to living partners of gay individuals who die, citing unsubstantiated evidence that doing so would: "promote" homosexuality, induce scores of citizens, including impressionable boys and girls, to spontaneously choose to become gay, result in a stampede of gays to Montana, and erode our well-known reputation for decency (the fact we've been a refuge for the Freemen, Militia of Montana, the Unabomber, and white supremacists notwithstanding).

NOTE: While Montana rejects the notion of giving benefits to gays and lesbians, lawmakers in Colorado are entertaining legislation that would allow humans to heir their estates to beloved pets.

Item No. 7 (I am not making this up): A Palestinian packs explosives onto a donkey, marches the animal toward a bus in Israel, and detonates the bomb via remote control.

Yet representatives from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals call upon terrorists to please show more respect for asses by not using them in suicide bombings.

Writer Todd Wilkinson lives in Bozeman. His column appears here every Monday.

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